Amazon opens Prime service to Singapore

Amazon.com has launched Prime service in Singapore to offer customers access to fast shipping, streaming and gaming.

In July 2017, the ecommerce tech company launched a free two-hour delivery service in Singapore, the first entry in open competition with Alibaba Group.

In a fragmented region of 600 million people like Southeast Asia, some customers were underwhelmed by its initial limited product categories and it faced fierce competition from Lazada.

Now Amazon, which had been offering its two-hour delivery service Prime Now for free on a USD 29.70 minimum purchase in Singapore without any membership fee, will start charging USD 6.65 per month after a limited introductory period.

While introducing the membership, the online retailer more than halved the threshold for free international shipping to Singapore and also cut delivery times, hoping the deal will attract more shoppers to its platform that will now give access to more than 5 million items from Amazon US.

Lazada had launched its own subscription-based customer loyalty programme LiveUp in Singapore in April 2017.